


Sunlit

by dombinic (niikolatesla)



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Fluff, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not A Game AU, Post-Canon, josh and sunkist are just mentioned this is more of a tommy and gordon centric fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:09:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28598226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niikolatesla/pseuds/dombinic
Summary: Nonlinear, Gordon and Tommy start healing from Black Mesa.
Relationships: Tommy Coolatta/Gordon Freeman
Comments: 12
Kudos: 70





	Sunlit

It’s too easy.

He falls into him too softly. He holds him back like they both aren’t fundamentally damaged.

Maybe he isn’t. Maybe the loving embrace, too loving, Gordon finds himself in- maybe Tommy isn’t. Maybe he’s okay, and Gordon’s just the one wrecked and hurt and broken, broken, _broken_ , and Tommy deserves so much better. He deserves a love Gordon isn’t sure he knows how to give. He deserves the sunshine and radiance he projects outward to be turned back to him, and more so, someone capable of being able to create that for him, give it back, give it back and more. 

It’s so warm. Tommy holds him a little tighter, resting his chin on the top of his head, and Gordon feels like he’s going to cry. 

Because somewhere, logically, he hasn’t earned this. There’s no- 

He could write the theorem of this on the wall to wall blackboard in the lecture hall he practically lived in at MIT, solve for x, calculate the trajectory, work a quantum equation supplementing his abstract for how astronomically improbable this is, because-

Because-

Because the gentle hand carding through his hair, because the sweet press of lips against his forehead-

The universe is so rarely logical. If not, never. 

Tommy isn’t always one for words. Gordon feels like he talks too much, sometimes. He knows this. 

So it’s quiet between them, except for Gordon, swallowing thick tears as he wipes his eyes with his hand before quickly burying it back into the sheets, trying to grab onto them and Tommy, like he’s afraid to let go. And maybe he is.

But there’s no judgement. There’s a silence, an understanding between them. And Tommy carefully pulls the blankets up to Gordon’s chin and holds him because he knows, because he’s learned this is what he needs. Gordon didn’t even tell him. He just knows, like he read it in a guide or studied the map, the constellation tracking of finger-pads against Gordon’s skin, counting freckles like starshine. And he knows.

There’s a tap-light, on their nightstand. Tommy got it for him. It’s shaped like a cat, with a little smiling face and everything, and it softens the room in a glow only second to Tommy’s eyes on a clear day. 

A gift given during the in-between time, before, this. When Gordon was still in a bachelor pad he felt too embarrassed about, another in-between place. The month when Gordon had to ask his parents if they could keep Joshie just a little bit longer, he’s just trying to clean up, he’s just trying to get his life back together, he promises, he’s fine, there’s just, shit, on top of shit, on top of shit, and his mattress is still on the floor like he’s back in undergrad housing because he still hasn’t unpacked his bed frame from the boxes and boxes and boxes. 

The month when he didn’t really sleep much. Because, when he sleeps, he’s back in the red clay and sludge just dragging him. The HEV suit, and the gun sewn into his skin, is so heavy on him, and maybe he should just lay in the water, and let the metal pull him down, down, down, before a massive hand reaches out for him and crushes him or pulls him up or toys with him and the team again and again and again. Or maybe when he closes his eyes for too long, he’s alone, in the dark, but he’s not really alone, is he, because the heavy footfalls drum in his ears and there’s a sick crunch as the Marine crushes his hand under steel-toed boots, holding it steady, the arm-guard unlocking with a mechanical hiss, and Gordon will never be sure if he caught the moment the knife plunged into skin or if he skipped straight to the pain. So he doesn’t sleep. And he doesn’t let his eyes shut for too long. And he keeps the TV and the lights on all night and keeps all the doors locked and windows drawn. He sits, on the mattress, on the floor, in his bachelor pad, surrounded by boxes, coffee-maker on, making pot after pot after pot after pot and-

Tommy.

Beautiful, and warm, and kind, Tommy.

It was a knock on the cheap door. And Gordon didn’t respond, because packages were left at the front desk, and he didn’t order food, but he paid all his bills and rent this month, so there’s no reason for anyone to be here, but-

“Mr. Freeman?” Comes the voice, slightly muffled from the inch of wood and glass between them. “It’s Tommy!” 

And he almost doesn’t answer. Because he’s a mess. He’s been wearing the same sweatpants for weeks. He can’t remember the last time he brushed his teeth, because he keeps trying to do it left-handed, and it’s weird and awkward and is never going to feel right and he just can’t get used to it, so why bother, and why bother showering, why bother doing much of anything, these days. It’s him, the TV, the coffee pot, and the takeout meals delivered to his front door.

Maybe he’s too fucked up from all of this, too hellshaken and beaten down and-

“You haven’t- I called you, um, a few times? But- I know- I know calling is- it can get people, anxious, so I texted, too, but-” Tommy stops himself. Gordon can hear something up against the door. Like a hand. Pressing his palm against it.

_“Can you feel it? Through- through the glove?” Tommy asks gently. He has his hand against Gordon’s, and, yes, through the glove, he can feel it. Academic’s hands. Thin, long fingers against his wide palm and Gordon nods. He nods, he can feel Tommy’s hand through the glove, and Tommy smiles and if Gordon’s heart wasn’t already hitched in his chest, it definitely is now, and Tommy takes his hand, slotting his fingers between the gaps of Gordon’s, squeezing like they were always meant to fit together, just like that. “Tell me- tell me, five things, you can touch.” He says. Gordon swallows, and starts. And Tommy runs through a few more things- tell me four things you can see, tell me three things you can smell, tell me two things you can taste, tell me one thing you feel, and- the last one- loved, loved, loved by Tommy, overwhelmingly so._

_But he couldn’t say that, could he._

At least, not then.

He might now.

He unlocks the deadbolt. He doesn’t unlatch the chain. 

He’s still scared. But he’s fine. He promises.

And there’s Tommy. There’s Tommy with a palm still against the door and paper grocery bags in the other hand, and he meets Gordon’s eyes for the first time in a month and there’s the warm, kind smile that Gordon hadn’t fully registered he missed, but there it is all the same. And there’s Tommy.

“Hi, Tommy,” Gordon says. He can’t look in his eyes for too long or he’ll melt. If he was a different kind of person, maybe he’d think Icarus flew too close to the sun not for ambition but because when such a light is all encompassing and all radiant and all for you, a hand on the cheek and a sweetness too undeserved, maybe it’s a need to sabotage yourself, because this couldn’t really be for you, could it?

But there is the sun. And his wings don’t shuck off his back. And he doesn’t tumble into the sea and he doesn’t crash and burn in a brilliant blaze, because-

Because it’s _Tommy_ , here, sighing so fondly at him, and quirking an eyebrow at the latch before Gordon catches himself and unlocks it.

And that was all it was. Gordon tried to have whatever conversation they were going to have outside, but Tommy made his way inside anyway, and there began a steady softness.

They got each other through Black Mesa, after all. So who else would open the windows and breathe life into a place Gordon’s not entirely sure had life to begin with, and make him laugh with a joke about the vegetable platter and deli tray he got from the store, and who else would sit on the edge of the counter in the bathroom as Gordon finally, _finally_ got his shower. Gordon, who finally realized why it took him so long to do in the first place, an unstable mixture of being alone, being afraid of the military or aliens he knew logically wouldn’t come but _what if_ , and just, being able to talk, again. Talking, for the first time in too long, his throat cracking as words and laughter tumbled from chapped lips. And through the steam and the hot water, Black Mesa rolled off of him in dirt, and grime, and grease, and all that remained was Gordon and Tommy, in his studio apartment, in nowhere, New Mexico, and Tommy found him again. Tommy found him, just like he found him after the ambush, and carried him through that place, and got him back.

It was between off-brand Ritz crackers and cheese and baby carrots and cucumbers that Tommy confessed he hadn’t really been doing well either. Something akin to what Gordon found himself in, perhaps a different methodology, same conclusion. And maybe he came here for a selfish reason, in his words, because, isn’t it always easier to help others than help yourself? And Gordon brushed cracker crumbs off his fingers and reached his hand out across the table for Tommy, and Tommy took it. Five things he can touch, four things he can see, three things he could smell, two things he could taste, one thing he was feeling.

There was no upright, immediate fix. Healing is slow. Healing is still something both of them are going through. Healing is not a linear, fixed thing, but all the same, they stood by each other. They got Gordon’s apartment squared away. Apparently, Tommy had been in a motel for the last few weeks, Black Mesa destroyed, living quarters included, and he found an apartment- he found multiple apartments, actually, dog-friendly too, and went through the processes, but a strange anxiety continues to overtake him, on those last few steps, where it’s horrifying to pull the trigger. When he’s already content in the four walls of his in-between space. Where maybe he could live in that in-between forever and let life roll over him like waves and ignore the news and maybe he finds himself still in the mindset of Black Mesa, and maybe he feels like he’s never going to leave there, really. And maybe this in-between of the motel is safe, a haven, a refuge under a stairwell or in a break room, cleared out by his own crack-shot gunfire. 

If there’s a cluster of crabs in a bucket, and one has a chance of escaping, the rest will pull it down. That’s the theory, anyway. No one asks who put the crabs there in the first place. And no one ponders what happens once the bucket is removed, and those crabs have nothing holding them back anymore. Or maybe it’s a bunch of bullshit. Maybe, sitting in Gordon’s bedroom-living room-dining room-kitchen-everything but the bathroom-room, hand in hand and holding each other's worlds in their palms, maybe they’d pull each other up from the bucket they found themselves in.

It had been six months, since then. Gordon cleaned up, Tommy cleaned up, decided maybe they could pool that Black Mesa Hush Money and stretch it out longer, a tentative agreement to being roommates, just for the time being, another in-between, finding a three bedroom, one for Tommy, one for Gordon, one for Joshua, and once upon a time as Gordon loaded moving boxes into the car he made a joke about being more of a cat person, but loving dogs all the same, of course, of course Sunkist, but Tommy got him that silly tap light. The tap light that got Gordon through the few nights before they moved into their home, and then the nights where Tommy slept in his designated bedroom before everything bubbled over, before Gordon realized he wasn’t going to sleep without Tommy, not out of fear, but because the distance of the wall between them was too far, and there it was. Tommy, Gordon, sometimes Sunkist, sometimes Joshua if he decided to crawl in bed with them after a nightmare, always that cat-shaped tap light.

Tonight was just Tommy and Gordon, Gordon’s hand clutched in the blankets as Tommy turned on the light, quickly returning his fingers back to Gordon's hair.

Maybe it’s not about deserving, or earning love. Maybe there was no prize for going through Black Mesa alive. Maybe it’s something simple, because the universe isn’t rational, or logical, but it’s simple, in its truths. Truths Gordon’s spent his college and career trying to figure out. Still trying to. Maybe, here, the conclusion is also simple. Maybe, despite everything, despite himself, the answer is Tommy, Gordon listening to his steady heartbeat through his chest.

One thing he can feel. Tell him one thing he can feel.

“I love you,” Gordon says. It’s not the first time he says it, nor is it going to be the last. And Tommy pulls him even closer. 

“I love you too,” Tommy says, tiredness betraying his voice, the clutches of sleep still holding him tight. It’s so simple, and easy, and maybe this is how love is supposed to feel. Words hanging so gently between them, like standing under the leaves of a lemon tree. And Gordon tilts his head up, kissing Tommy’s jaw, and the covers are pulled up closer to envelop both of them. 

The tap light stays on the rest of the night, and Gordon settles into Tommy’s arms, like how he's supposed to. The sun shines on only him in their bedroom, held warm, held as the sounds of the waking world lull him back to this kinder, softer place.

And Gordon holds Tommy back. And he is safe, and he is loved. 

**Author's Note:**

> im soft !!!! sometimes you just want a little softness !!!!!!!!! is that too much to ask !!!!!!!!!!  
> slkjdfglsdkfg ANYWAY i hope u enjoyed this !!!! i had a lot of fun writing it it was sort of a spur of the moment oh boy 11pm time to write five pages of freelatta slkdfjgs  
> as always comments/kudos are always appreciated !!! thank you so much for reading !!!!!!!


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